Starting today, you can now take a driverless bus down the Las Vegas strip

The bus has driven Las Vegas's streets before — but this time, it will navigate along a route filled with other traffic.

The future is headed to Las Vegas in the form of a driverless, electric bus that will begin shuttling passengers along a half-mile downtown route beginning Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. The autonomous buses are the brainchild of French autonomous vehicle company Navya ARMA, which is teaming up with AAA and Keolis, the company that owns and operates the shuttle, to gauge passenger enthusiasm for the product.

It isn't the first time the driverless shuttle has hit Las Vegas's streets. Back in January, the bus took a ten-day test drive along an empty route that had been cordoned off from the rest of traffic. Now, the bus will intermix with regular traffic, communicating with a series of wireless sensors installed into traffic signals along its journey.

The vehicle was designed without steering wheels or breaks, and relies on GPS, a combination of cameras, and light-detecting senors in order to navigate the busy streets. AAA hopes that as many as 250,000 riders will board the bus over the course of the next year. In return, the company will donate $1 per every passenger who rides the shuttle to those affected by the mass shooting in Las Vegas that took place in October.

Self-driving shuttle in minor wreck on launch day

A self-driving shuttle in downtown Las Vegas was involved in a wreck minor today, the first day of a monthlong trial period.

After a kickoff ceremony at the Container Park, the autonomous vehicle began shuttling passengers around a .6-mile loop downtown for the first time. But after just a few runs, it was hit by a delivery truck, according to Metro Police.

“The (autonomous) vehicle stopped as designed when it saw a truck backing up, but the truck simply didn’t stop backing up,” said Andreas Mai, executive vice president of market development and innovation for Keolis, which operates the shuttle. “The truck very slowly backed up into a parked autonomous shuttle.”

The eight passengers on board the free shuttle were not hurt, and the driver of the truck was cited with a minor traffic violation, police said.